I unexpectedly ran into an old family friend today. This woman has been a friend to my family since before I was born. She was my primary teacher when I was 5. Every memory I have of her breathes warmth and love. She was the first person of Tongan decent I ever knew and I’ve had positive inclinations for all Tongan people ever since. She was that wonderful. Seeing her today was like going home. Even more like going home than actually visiting my hometown, because when I’m in my hometown I’m confronted with all the changes time has wrought. I had a wonderful, but short, visit with her and her husband (whom I didn’t know well as a child) and I’ve discovered that they’ve moved to a town only about 20 minutes from here. I may play adopt-a-grandparent because my kids are short of local grandparents and I’d love for them to know her.
I’ve spent a good portion of this afternoon sorting through random memories that were dredged up by this encounter. I’m suddenly thinking of wading and catching polywogs in The Arroyo. I’m remembering a chestnut tree that used to grow in the courtyard of our church building. (It had the most fascinating spiky balls that fell from it yearly. Do chestnuts do that? Maybe it was something else.) I’m remembering tagging along on my brother’s Cub Scout outings because my mom and this friend were the den mothers. I’m remembering playing with a dozen friends whose paths went different ways in junior high and high school, people I haven’t thought of for years.
All of these memories seem imbued with a sort of idylic glow. They were happier, less worrisome times. But not because the world was a safer place, I don’t believe it was all that much safer, the glow is because I was a child and it wasn’t my job to make the world better. I was free to just enjoy it. The times that my kids will remember as idylic are taking place right now. Years hence my kids will look back on today as some sort of golden age when life was simpler. I will too. When I am a grandmother, watching my children raising children of their own, I too will look back on today as a golden age.
This is why I need to keep this journal, so that years from now when I want to tour The Golden Age, I’ll have a guidebook.
My favorite pricklies from my childhood are the fruits of the Liquidambar tree. Sycamores also have prickly fruits (we used to call these “itchy balls”), but horse chestnuts are very possibly what you remember. True chestnuts are less common. (Sorry, I go all obsessive when a botany topic comes up.)
Hmm. Looking that the pictures, I actually think it might have been a liquidambar tree. Do those grow in Northern California?
Here’s a closeup. They’re pretty distinctive. Did the tree turn gorgeous colors in the falll? It’s native to the Eastern US, but it’s such a popular ornamental that it could be found anywhere.
It’s hard to say for sure, I was only about 7 when the tree was removed, but I think it was a liquidambar. My second guess is Horse Chestnut.
Wow. I thought the tree by the bridge at my childhood home was a sycamore, but looking at these pictures, I now think it was a Liquidambar tree. Which I’d never heard of before. The things one learns on LJ…
And we had a horse chestnut in the backyard of my old house in Nashville. We used to call the seed casings “bio-bombs” because we so often carelessly stepped on them barefoot.
Those are the two most likely ones. If it was a horse chestnut, though, I’d think you’d remember the smooth, glossy brown “conkers” inside the prickly outer hulls. The liquidamber (or sweet gum) is just a big prickle.
Bio-bombs – I love it. The liquidambar is also known as the sweet gum. That’s the name I grew up with, but now I’m a pretentious botany snob. 😉
Sweet gum! That’s the name I knew!
But now I need to know what a sycamore really looks like.
Liquidambar in California
I can say for a certainty that there are Liquidambar trees in Southern California. Northern California I’m not sure about, but probably.
I have a sweet gum tree right now causing me problems… it keeps dropping limbs in the yard. Really big nasty limbs that I have to get rid of somehow so we can mow because I’m the only one strong enough. Bah! Anybody want a realy big old tree? You can have it free if you’ll only come get it!
Your best bet is to do a Google image search for sycamore and one for Plantanus occidentalis. I couldn’t find a single picture that covered the tree well, but there are good shots of leaves, trees and seeds. The leaves are thick and have fuzzy backs, and the bark peels in a very attractive way. It’s quite popular as a shade tree.
Prickly balls
There are a lot of prickly ball trees in your hometown and we always called them sweet gum trees.
Prickly balls
There are a lot of prickly ball trees in your hometown and we always called them sweet gum trees.
They are a gorgeous red and red orange in the fall.
Re: Prickly balls
I remember all the prickly ball trees. But I’m still not sure whether the tree that used to grow in the courtyard of the Mocho building was one. It was way back before the addition to the building when the courtyard was open on one side. Do you happen to remember if that was a prickly ball tree or something else? I remember someone telling me it was a chestnut tree.
(Funny how these insignificant memories grow out of proportion as I try to remember.)
Ah, yes, got it. “Furry” trees.
Sweet Gum is the name that I’m most familiar with from an Eastern NC childhood. Those prickly balls HURT when you step on them with bare feet. Not quite as much as when you step on cedar tree prickles.
Now I’m curious. Most cedars that I know have flat, scale-like leaves. What kind of cedar has prickles?
The leaves aren’t prickly but some part of the tree is. Lays in wait in the dead needles at the base of the tree. About 1.5″ long up to 2″ long and about 1/2″ wide. Thin prickles branching out from a thin centre core.